MARQUETTE, Mich. â€Â“ The Northern Michigan University hockey team took one step closer to Joe Louis Arena and the CentralCollegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) Championship Tournament with a 4-1 winover the University of Nebraska-Omaha on Friday night at the Berry Events Center.  The Wildcats lead the best-of-three series with the second game tomorrownight.  NMU improves to 21-14-2 on the season.  The Mavericks fall to 20-13-6. Ã¢Ã‚€Ã‚œWe had a lot of guys play up tonight,â€Â Walt Kyle said.  â€ÂœWe still have a lotof work left to do.â€Â

The first three goals of the game were all scored on thepower play.  Matt Siddall gave the â€Â˜Cats the 1-0 lead with his sixth goal ofthe season at 4:06 of the first period.  Jamie Milam and Darin Olver assisted. UNO tied the score at one on a goal by Bill Thomas at 16:22 of the frame.  DirkSouthern gave the â€Â˜Cats the lead for good (2-1) with his 11^th goalof the season at 17:57 of the first period.  Southernâ€Â™s power-play goal wasassisted by Andrew Contois and Nathan Oystrick.

The â€Â˜Cats would add a goal in the second and third periodscompliments of Rob Lehtinen.  He made the score 3-1 with his third goal of theseason at 8:40 of the second period.  Oystrick and Milam assisted.  Lehtinenmade the score 4-1 with his fourth goal of the season at 7:00 of the thirdperiod.  Dusty Collins and Bobby Selden were credited with the helpers.  â€ÂœIhave not scored that much this year,â€Â Lehtinen said. 

UNO had 26 shots on the night to 18 for NMU.  Bill Zanibonihad 25 saves for the â€Â˜Cats.  â€ÂœThey got the puck and I just had to get back inthe net and throw something up there,â€Â Zaniboni said about a save early in thegame.  Jerad Kaufmann turned away 14 shots for the Mavericks. Ã‚  NMU had fivepower play opportunities while the Mavericks had six.

Game two of the best-of-three is Saturday, March, 11 at 7:35p.m.